10:03. He’s lying in bed pulling on his half-hard pud and looking at the cracks in the sheetrock ceiling from the heat pump leaking in the attic last year. The cracks, the veins on his grandmother’s peasant feet. Boiled cabbage. One fat blue vein on his cock. Cock of the walk crows each morning, slip on the hard pants, hit the bus to the warehouse to the bus back home ten hours later. Dickens washed bottles. Slip the dick ins. 10:04. The shower is running. She’s in there, naked, wet. Should he surprise her? A sudsy pre-bed fuck. But what if she looks at him the way she sometimes looks at him? Pity. Tenderness paired with disgust. The inevitable dry fuck that is its own rejection. Lube in his dresser, condoms too. Not that he needs them. God bless her IUD. Though it’s affected her sex drive. Or has he affected it? Smothered it? Killed it? Effectively. 10:05. Erection losing steam. Blood retreats, wells within his aging body. The body keeps the score, fine, but what kind of game is this, then? What are the rules? He pulls harder, tries to revive the corpse of his lust. Courtney died years ago. An accident, supposedly. Supposably. She pronounced “supposedly” that way. A high school soccer star, flat-chested but with legs all the cheerleaders envied. Grief. Heroin. More grief. So it goes and goes and goes until it doesn’t. 10:06. He suspects she masturbates in the shower. Often exits more flushed than the heat warrants. He’s not jealous. Just wishes for an invitation. 10:07. His neighbor Mary has incredible legs too. Part-time yoga instructor. Always wearing flowery cravats. Lilies are for funerals. The toned ass of the power walker who circles the warehouse. Keeps her arms high and tight like a chicken. He and Sean share their lunch breaks on the roof, talking about past fucks, admiring the toned ass, lying—to each other and themselves—about their sexual exploits yet to come. Courtney’s mother’s chicken francese. Trays of the stuff on a folding table at the closed-casket wake. Asses to ashes, legs to dust. 10:12. Stroking hard and fast now to salvage the erection. She’s in the hallway creaking toward the room. Opens the door. A shaft of light briefly flashes across his chest, his cock, the tops of his thighs. Darkness. She farts. Loud, unmuffled by clothes. “I had chili for lunch,” she says. “Vegan. With tofu. Alaina at work made some for everyone.” She walks around the bed, sips water from the cloudy pint glass on the table. “That water is old,” he says. “So?” she says. “It’s gross,” he says, holding his cock, holding on. “Full of dust.” She takes another loud sip, says, “It’s just water.” They lie together in the dark. Shift bodies, pillows. Release smells and breaths. 10:14. Courtney always slept on her stomach while he’d fall asleep on his side, watching her. Who’s her Courtney? Shouldn’t he know? He can ask her in the morning but he won’t. He presses his cock against her hip, flesh to bone. “So. Do you want to?” Ten seconds pass. She throws one leg over him, starts kissing his neck. He runs his hands over her breasts. 10:19. She’s riding him. The angle isn’t right. The bed is too soft. She has one hand on the headboard for resistance. He arches his back. Butter, lemon, parsley. Folding chairs. An ill-fitting black suit, an armful of lilies. The heat pump hums softly. She’s panting. His left hamstring cramps. Life moves on, supposably. But the cracks are still there in the ceiling, you just can’t see them in the dark.

Jon Doughboy is a wellness guru using the mystical healing properties of prose to unlock scribblers’ fasciae and imaginations. Book your next thumb sucking & writing workshop @doughboywrites.